Hannah’s Truth, a Cypress Security romantic suspense novel, is packed with action, surprises, and a happy ever after!
About the book:
What happened in Vegas may just be the key to surviving a powerful enemy. . .
After his Army career cost him his marriage, Karl Bartholomew swore off commitment and started a new life in Virginia. But when Bart finds one of his employees murdered and all signs point to the cartel, he knows he needs backup.
Calling in a favor from his old Army pals at Cypress Security is a no-brainer, but Bart is as shocked as anyone to find that part of his cover is marriage to the one woman he can’t forget.
DEA Special Agent Hannah Thalberg knows every case has its risks. After her witness is brutally murdered, she refuses to give up her investigation. A Vegas wedding to Bart is the perfect cover. . . and the perfect temptation.
As Bart and Hannah fight to uncover the secrets of their shared enemy, they can’t resist the desire flaring between them. To survive, they’ll have to trust each other—and their hearts.
If you like romantic suspense loaded with fake relationships turned all too real, dangerous thrills, and characters who will do anything for justice, you’ll love Hannah’s Truth!
Sneak Peek!
Chapter 1
Patriot Plaza Truck Stop
Karl Bartholomew dreamed of a warm, supple woman arching into his caress. Her hair smelled faintly of fresh-cut lemons and her smooth skin felt delicate under his hands. Her long legs tangled with his and he turned his face into the sweet touch of her hand, kissing her palm.
An alarm sounded, shrill and unwelcome, jerking him out of the dream. She wasn’t his. Couldn’t be his. Not even in his subconscious.
The shrill sound of the alarm blared in his ear and he reached over and slapped at the clock on the nightstand until it fell to the floor. After a long night going over the monthly financial reports, he’d planned to sleep an extra hour before heading back to work.
The alarm screamed again and with an oath, he realized it wasn’t the alarm clock at all. It was his phone, screaming with the abrasive ringtone he set for business calls from the truck stop downstairs.
He rolled to his side, trying to focus on the display long enough to check the time. 5:15 AM flashed brightly above the symbols to answer or ignore the call.
When he’d left the Army for the private sector, he really hadn’t thought through his business decisions. There were thousands of other ventures that didn’t require a man to rise at stupid-early hours. But he hadn’t chosen any of those. He’d chosen to go his own way and create a solitary haven for truckers and travelers on this sparsely populated stretch of Interstate 95 in the middle of nowhere Virginia.
He managed to swipe the right symbol and accept the call. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jenny, sir. I’m locked out.”
Bart sat up. Since he’d added a restaurant two years ago, his cook, Tim Jensen, was always first in and he unlocked the doors for the first shift cashiers.
“Did you try around back?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s Bart,” he said, tossing aside the sheets. Jenny was new to the staff and young enough that sir was still entrenched from her high school days.
“Yes, s— Bart,” she said. “Tim’s car isn’t here.”
“Okay. I’ll be right down.”
He was ready and dressed in a matter of minutes, pulling on clean cargo pants and a t-shirt from the neatly folded stacks in the closet. He shoved his feet into a worn pair of boots and dropped his phone and keys into his pockets. God bless the Army for teaching him an efficiency not even the past seven years of civilian life had erased. And God bless civilian life for the more relaxed attitude about shaving.
Those ingrained habits were part of the reason he’d hired Tim in the first place, he thought, hurrying down the stairs from his apartment to the main store. An Army infantry veteran, Tim swore he was up every morning anyway, might as well be productive instead of playing solitaire on his laptop.
Bart understood exactly what the older man meant. Sometimes it was the crap they’d survived, other times it was the utter lack of excitement. Either way, sleep wasn’t something that came easy for either of them.
Following habit, his glance swept over this side of his property, counting the trucks parked in the overnight area. The diesel engines rumbled where drivers had slept over and soon they’d be up and wanting breakfast before getting back on the road.
His brilliant business expansion didn’t seem quite so great in the pre-dawn hours when he was the one doing the cooking.
“Morning,” he said to Jenny who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He shook out the key and opened the deadbolt, then tapped his wallet across the gray square security panel. The card in his wallet greeted the panel, making happy electronic noises as the locks opened. The perky sound irritated him.
“There you go.”
“Thank you, si—”
He cut her off with a look.
“I mean, thank you.”
“Thanks for calling me.” The girl had initiative, a quality he looked for in his staff. His monthly networking with other business owners assured him most employees at her pay level would have simply gone back home. “I’ll unlock the register for you and then get started in the kitchen.” He checked the clock above the door. “If any of them ask, tell them we’re fifteen minutes behind.”
Everything looked normal in the dining room as he walked through, but he only turned the lights on over the counter. He checked the staff board, pleased to see Maria was on the schedule for a double shift today. The oldest of the waitresses, the woman moved faster than lightning, made everyone smile, and never let a coffee cup run dry.
Bart flipped switches, turning on lights as he headed for the walk-in cooler. He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted two large pans of the breakfast casseroles Tim made up for weekend service.
He carried those out to the prep table and turned on the oven to preheat. The casseroles would salvage the schedule and satisfy the early risers until Tim showed up. Bart stared at the grill and fryers, hoping like hell it didn’t come down to him doing the cooking. Owner or not, his Army service had focused more on covert ops than cheese omelets.
Riding a wave of wishful thinking, Bart stuck his head out the back door to check for Tim. Like Jenny said, the man’s Army salvage Jeep wasn’t in the usual spot. “What the hell, Tim?” he muttered to the humid summer morning as he dialed the number for Tim’s house.
When the voice mail prompted him, Bart left a curt message and pocketed his cell. He couldn’t go looking now, but as soon as the breakfast rush was over and someone else was here to help Jenny, he would drive out and find his AWOL cook. And when he found him, he’d insist the man start using a cell phone.
With one more look around, he was turning back to the kitchen when he noticed the clamp they used to secure the lids on the big trash dumpster had fallen to the ground. He made a mental note to talk with whoever had closed up last night. Raccoons and opossums were forever rooting through the scraps and trash, a serious downfall of being the only business in the immediate area. He stomped over, ready to take out his frustration on any unwanted visitors in the bin. It wasn’t his first time dealing with the wildlife and he pounded on the side before he raised the lid cautiously.
No reaction from inside. That was good news, but he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t be trapping a wild animal for the day before he put the clamp back in place. Holding his breath against the stench of rotting garbage, he found a foothold and leaped up to peer inside.
Fury whipped through him and he nearly lost his footing. “Dammit.”
Bound and gagged, Tim’s body had been tossed on top of yesterday’s trash. Bart checked for a pulse, but his cook was well beyond any lifesaving effort. Tim stared sightlessly at the lightening sky. Bruises marred his face and blood soaked through the fabric of his shirt and jeans. Even with his hands bound, it was clear a couple of fingers had been broken and crushed by something heavy.
He spotted a spiral notebook in Tim’s shirt pocket and pulling a pencil from his pocket he slid it out and turned a couple of pages. Just produce orders and a new recipe that didn’t make much sense to Bart.
Bart was tempted to take a closer look, but he didn’t want to contaminate the scene further. Pushing the notebook back into Tim’s pocket, he dropped back to the ground and pulled his phone from a side pocket of his pants.
Pacing away from the dumpster, he swore at the streak of orange paint across the knee of his pants. He looked back and saw the glowing orange graffiti of a skull and crossbones on the dumpster. Instead of the usual one-eyed grimace found on pirate flags, the skull had ‘X’s for eyes and a wavy line for a smile. He’d seen the sign in the news recently with reporters tying it to a Mexican cartel moving into the area and stirring up trouble with gangs in the urban areas further north.
How the hell had Tim managed to piss off a drug cartel?
He took a picture with his phone. Switching to his contacts page, he scrolled the short list of names and numbers until he found the sheriff’s office. No sense dialing 911 and rousing all of the volunteers in the county for a body.
He dialed and while he waited for an answer, he looked up toward the one security camera trained at this door. The vandal had covered the lens with that same neon orange spray paint. They might find the vandal, but odds were against finding whoever dumped the body.
What he wouldn’t give to kick these criminal crews off the planet. It seemed his best years had been spent cleaning up streets and communities just in time for the next wave to move in.
When the deputy on the desk duty answered, Bart gave the few details, relieved to have a tangible task. Then he just stood there, angry, a little sick, and unsure of the next step.
It felt wrong to leave Tim’s body out here alone, but he should walk through the kitchen for any sign that Tim had been dragged into something shady. He also wanted a look at the security tape without an audience. Bart knew his cook wouldn’t have willingly done anything wrong, but those injuries indicated something more than a mugging or car-jacking gone bad.
Bart recognized signs of torture, even a fast job like the one someone had put Tim through.
With a heavy sigh, he made another call, this time to his ex-wife, holding the phone away from his ear so her scathing greeting wouldn’t break an eardrum.
“Good God, do you ever check a clock?”
It had been a familiar refrain on the rare times he’d been able to call home when he was deployed. “Sorry, Beth, but it’s important.”
“It’s summer.”
A fact he appreciated since it meant his son was vacationing far away on the Jersey shore with her at her family’s beach house.
“Listen to me,” he growled into the phone. “I have a situation here and it might spill over.”
“You never could stop—”
“Not the time, Beth.” She’d told him often enough how he put the Army above his wife and son. “Can you just keep Kyle with you until I know it’s clear down here?”
“Is this some kind of joke? He’s telling everyone about getting back to you and that car you’re supposed to rebuild. A project you didn’t bother to clear with me. It’s all he can talk about. You can’t let him down.”
“I won’t.” Bart scrubbed at his face, while the old laundry list of his failures as a husband and father put a sickening spin in his gut. “I swear I won’t. Stay alert up there, Beth. I mean it.”
“Okay, okay.”
“I’m sending you a text with a phone number. If you have any concerns, if anything feels the slightest bit off, call that number and you’ll have help.”
“You’re scaring me.”
Good. Bart glanced at the dumpster. “Just stay alert,” he said, more gently this time.
“I will.”
As far as mornings went, he thought, this could only be worse if it was a Monday.
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